


Surviving Together

by LootPaddle



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Enemies to Friends, Epic Battles, Gen, Headcanon, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Intense, Mental Health Issues, Starvation, Suicidal Thoughts, Survival, Swearing, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27906883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LootPaddle/pseuds/LootPaddle
Summary: After meeting yet another horrid fate, Wickerbottom finds herself in what seems to be the same world that she has been stuck in for years now: The Constant. Little does she know that this time around, she won't be alone.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	Surviving Together

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first try at writing something based on a fandom, and this has also been the first time that I've uploaded anything I've written to the internet, so sorry if its not the best! I actually had a fun time writing thing though so hopefully in the future I'll add some more chapters! :)

Visions of black and white swirls danced around Wickerbottom’s mind, an odd experience considering that normally when she died she was knocked out and put on presumably a different island, or possibly in a different dimension completely. However, in all her years living in this world, this had never occurred before. She didn’t know if she was conscious or not, or even if she was alive. The last thing she remembered was hunger eating away at her, the winter breeze blowing in her face, bringing with it sharp and piercing cold snowflakes. She had no burnable items anymore, and her fire was growing dim. It got dimmer, and dimmer, until eventually… Perhaps Maxwell had gotten sick of her and sent her to this world's version of hell. That wouldn’t exactly be out of the question, seeing as how nearly everything in this world was uncertain. If this was what death was like, though, she had to admit that it wasn’t the worst. Not having to worry about anything, hunger, health, her own sanity. It was calming, despite the disorienting visuals.

She had no idea how long she’d been flowing weightlessly through the seemingly never-ending tunnel of swirls. It could’ve been hours, days, maybe even weeks. There was nothing that indicated the passing of time here, and it could’ve been possible that time hadn’t passed at all. The disorientation was getting to her now, and she could seemingly do nothing to stop it. Maybe this wasn’t better than being in the Constant. At least there she could sit and stare at the setting sun, or feel the rough pages of parchment from her books as they gilded through her fingers in a rather satisfying manner. She didn’t like closing her eyes often, but right now she wished that she could. Closing your eyes was normally a waste of time that could’ve been used to inspect and figure out how the world and the things in it worked. To explore how the world worked was truly one of the best parts of life, for her anyway. But here, there was nothing to investigate. It was the same thing over, and over, and over again. A broken record of overlapping swirls of black and white, creating a pattern that would make you want to vomit. There was nothing to learn from this place. Nothing.

_ I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a loop of brain-melting visuals. If I had to go back to the constant, I hate to admit it, but I would. _

And then with a feeling that could only be described as being ripped out of time itself, it was over, and the world turned black.

Waking up was a real challenge this time. The horrendous visions of black and white were gone now, instead replaced by darkness. The ground that she was laying on was slightly damp, and the air had a slight chill to it. It must be the beginning of autumn. Her whole body ached, which generally was normal, old age will do that to you. But she felt battered this time, and her normally clear mind felt foggy. She opened her eyes, squinting at the bright sun in the sky. She laid there for a moment, watching the sun slowly move through the sky, causing soft beams of light to filter through nearby trees and bushes. Finally she turned her head to look around. Immediately her eyes locked onto an arched pillar of marble that had spikey brambles entangled around it. Dark red roses bloomed from the vines, and a sinister looking eye was positioned at the top of the arch, staring at her. She couldn’t help but stare at it for a moment. Something about it disturbed her, and not just the fact that it was a random eyeball glaring at her. It had this sort of feeling around it that made it’s gaze much more uncomfortable than it should’ve been. She grunted and forced herself to sit up. Her muscles ached and they begged her to lay back down t. But she had things to get done. She really didn’t want to die from darkness the first night, plus she wanted to get a closer look at the strange arch.

“Hm,”. Inspecting the arch didn’t provide much of anything, in fact it only left her with more questions. She held out her hand and let her fingertips trail down the side of it. It was cold to the touch, and it seemed dirty and definitely not well taken care of. All questions were halted as the sky grew darker, and took on a pinkish-orange tint.  _ Now was not the time for investigating mysterious structures, there will be time for that later, _ she thought to herself, dusting off her skirt diligently. Turning around she examined the area around her, choosing a direction and walking. There was a slight kink in her step, she soon realized. It wasn’t too painful for her standards, mostly just annoying. 

“Perhaps I fell when I got here,” she mumbled to herself quietly. Something must’ve happened that involved some force, sadly, or maybe thankfully, she couldn’t remember what that something was. 

After wandering for a while, Wickerbottom came across a skeleton of a long-dead survivor that held a spear and some rope. She picked up the items, taking a moment to appreciate how well-preserved the specimen was. She had gotten over the shock of finding previous failed survivors a long time ago. It was common-place now to find these skeletons and the scattered surviving items that they had with them. The only thing that kind of disturbed her was the fact that the items that always seemed to come with them were always reliable, and didn’t seem harshly used or influenced by the weather. It almost seemed as if they were made just a couple months, or even weeks earlier. Despite that, she was thankful for the extra boost in supplies, and she continued her search for more saplings to make a sturdy handle for her axe. She held the spear close to her side, her muscles tensing as she heard the familiar sound of metal scraping and awful-sounding accordion.  _ Clockworks, _ She thought to herself, gripping her spear harder. She definitely wasn’t looking to fight any right now, she’d do that later, however the sounds of hooves clanking on marble floor made her slightly anxious. She was about to walk away, it wasn’t worth the risk of getting any closer, and honestly she didn’t want to get closer anyway. She froze as she heard a louder noise, the sound of hooves scraping deliberately on the ground, metal banging against metal in a brutal-sounding fashion, as well as ear piercing scraping sounds, even louder than usual. The thought of free loot of any kind sounded good, not to mention she was morbidly curious on what was possibly stupid enough to confront a knight.  _ A lot of things _ , she decided, thinking about how dense most of the creatures here were. She pushed aside a frond of grass, cautiously readjusting her glasses to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.

“What on earth...”.

There, about 30 feet away, was a knight, and… some other clockwork fighting. She was just as shocked to realize that the robot was holding a tentacle spike tightly in its grip. Cautiously she walked forward, trying to get a better look at it before it inevitable succumbed to the knight. The robot had hollow, black eyes, a tan exterior metal plating, and looked relatively humanoid. After all her years in this world, she had never come across anything like it. She picked up her pace as she noticed that the mysterious robot was letting out sparks, and some of the plates on its body were dented. It definitely didn’t look like it was in too good of condition. She reached for her pocket, fumbling with the objects in there. Her hand gripped a chip of flint, the cool touch of the stone sending a chill down her body. She gritted her teeth and pulled her arm back, and with as much force as she could, which, she had to admit, wasn’t much- threw the chunk of flint. To her pleasant surprise she heard the satisfying clank of rock against metal, and the Knight slowly turned its body away from the robot and towards her. Slowly she brandished her spear, holding it up in a threatening position. To her relief, she didn’t have to do much of anything else. She watched as the robot raced with surprising speed at the Knight, rearing back the tentacle spike and with great force, striking the Knight right in the side, slamming open the accordion part of the clockwork. With a loud crash, the knight fell to the ground, screws and metal plates scattering around the area. The two stood there for a moment in silence, eventually bringing their gazes up from the fallen clockwork and up to each other.

Almost immediately afterwards the robot crouched beside the Knight, and began scavenging through it, expertly removing tan plates, and separating welded pieces with seemingly pure strength. Wickerbottom watched from a bit further away, cautious not to get too close. She still had no idea if this thing was aggressive or not. However, it was very clear that this Automaton had done this before, seemingly numerous times if she had to be honest. Most things in this world made it pretty obvious that they weren’t from the place she once called home. For some reason the things in this place had a certain feeling, or aura to them. Nothing in this world felt normal. Not the rabbits, the pigs, the frogs, the statues, even the trees. But she got none of these feelings from this robot. Perhaps that’s just because it’s a robot that makes decisions based on code and not its own freewill… or maybe it wasn’t from this world. She learned to always trust her gut and intuition, but it’s pretty hard to believe that she may have just met something that was in the same boat as she was, even if it wasn’t human.

The automaton finished taking out the gears with care, wiping the gear clean of oil and dirt in a gentle and precise manner. WickerBottom watched as the robot stared at the gears, it’s empty eyes giving no recognition of anything human-like, which is to be expected. There was more uncomfortable silence, until-

“BECAUSE YOU ASSISTED ME IN COMBAT I WILL NOT KILL YOU. CONSIDER YOURSELF LUCKY.”

WickerBottom stood there in shocked silence. Not only could this thing talk, but it knew seemingly nothing about mannerisms. It even lacked the basic sentiment of saying a ‘thank you’. As soon as it finished it’s sentence, it sat up and began walking in the opposite direction of her, it’s spring components making strange robotic noises as it stomped away. The sounds of the pine trees creaking behind her brought her back from the little moment of utter shock. She dusted off her skirt, straightened her slanted glasses, and yelled out at the tan robot,

“You’re welcome you disrespectful tin can of rust!”. And with that, she turned and walked away. There was no use in checking the Knight, the automaton had already gotten all available gears out of it. She gave a quick glance back at the scene behind her, but the robot had already gone. She narrowed her eyes and ventured back into the forest. Whatever it was, it was gone now. And she had work to do. She had to survive.


End file.
